


before my blackened wing covered you

by thedivinemove



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Because that ending was unacceptable, Dracula's angst, F/M, Post-Series, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedivinemove/pseuds/thedivinemove
Summary: In his dreams she buries her teeth deep in his neck, blood gushing out as she breaks his artery. She is on top of him, warm and beautiful, so beautiful, her touch like flames licking his skin. She drains his blood as he lies there unmoving, his limbs paralyzed, pain filling every cell in his body.“Did you really think I would do this,” she whispers, lips red and shiny and venomous, “that I would be your compliant bride, a tool for you to use and discard after your petty revenge is done?”





	

 

 

Forever is a blur of light and noise, getting brighter and louder with every decade that passes. He hates this world; hates its emptiness and the crippling cold. His twisting hunger. (His lost soul.)

Staying in the shadows becomes more difficult and at the same time, more necessary. He changes faces so often he no longer recognizes the person who looks back at him in the mirror.

The Earth moves.

He walks alone.

 

 

-

 

Hunger eats him alive. He had known, even before he met her for the last time, that the very sip of her blood would ruin him for all else. That his lips would forever burn for her taste. That being deprived of her would be like gasping for air underwater, for all eternity.

He should have cared.

He wanders the blood-splattered battlefields, sinks his teeth into dying soldiers' necks but he could as well be eating glass. His hunger never ceases. No blood is ever enough.

 

-

 

In his dreams he stops her. He kills the wolf himself and steals the choice away from her, no gun to pierce her heart, no last link to God. He changes her mind and watches as the doubt leaves her eyes replaced by the comforting tranquility of the dark.

(When he wakes up, he knows that no matter what he'd have done, the outcome would have been the same. She would still find a way to slip away from his grasp, one way or another. Over and over again, his father's peculiar way of punishment – to tempt him with a promise of happiness, only to have it snatched away as soon as he starts to hope.)

It doesn't stop him from dreaming.

 

-

 

He thinks he sees her in a museum in Rome. A wisp of dark hair and blue eyes catching his own for a split second, and his breath freezes in his lungs. He turns on his heel, the crowds part for him, and everything slows as he follows her to the back of the room.

(It's not her.)

(He sinks his teeth into her throat but it's nothing like the kiss he gave _her_ , and her blood blisters his tongue; he leaves her half-dead under Caravaggio's Saint Jerome, her eyes blind to his changing face.)

 

-

 

In his dreams he steals her away. She is his bride and his queen, and she comes willingly, leaves her past life and sadness behind and they run to the ends of the world. Their enemies never find them. Vanessa never leaves.

He dreams of their eternity together, ruling the darkness surrounded by their children. All the creatures of the night gathering around them, in the safety of their power. Their care. Their love. Vanessa's smile blooming like roses for him, only for him.

He hates those dreams the most.

 

-

 

He thought he would punish God by turning his precious Earth to rubble and dust; stifle all life until only the dead walked the streets; send the vermin straight to Lucifer's Hell. He thought that after possessing Vanessa's power he would finally reach Heaven and set it alight. He thought watching it burn would be his own brand of salvation.

All those years upon years of meticulous planning, of biding his time – all ruined by one foolish mistake.

 

-

 

He plays a doctor again in Berlin, a different kind of medicine at his disposal. Nazis, Allies – they all taste the same and in the end they all belong in the ground. But the conflict brings him no joy anymore. He doesn't interfere like he would have, once. Weariness weighs down on him, like stones around his neck. He hunts down his brethren, the ones who are too loud and too daring, who endanger the others with exposure. He hunts them down and tears out their hearts, watches them burn to ash. It is his only drive in this war.

 

-

 

In his dreams she buries her teeth deep in his neck, blood gushing out as she breaks his artery. She is on top of him, warm and beautiful, _so beautiful_ , her touch like flames licking his skin. She drains his blood as he lies there unmoving, his limbs paralyzed, pain filling every cell in his body.

“Did you really think I would do this,” she whispers, lips red and shiny and venomous, “that I would be your compliant bride, a tool for you to use and discard after your petty revenge is done?”

He has no breath, no lungs, no heart – there's only fire blazing in his veins, fire where her teeth bite into his skin. “Did you really think I would forgive all that you've done to me?”

He dies and dies and dies, over and over again, the never-ending cycle of dying and then coming back to the same burning pain and his own blood in his mouth. She swallows his breath with her kiss (and his heart and soul, all hers, to rip to shreds).

Waking up is the only mercy he is granted.

 

-

 

Back in London, he visits her grave.

Something is rotting inside of him, unspoken words like acid in his throat.

“Forgive me.” He tries again, louder; tries to believe it. “If I could – I would have done it differently.” The lie rings hollow, his empty, meaningless words lost to the howling wind. He is unchanging, a creature cursed to repeat his mistakes until the end of all existence.

 

-

 

In his dreams he never meets her. He leaves her to live her life in peace. Those dreams are blurry and faded like old photographs, because not knowing her is unimaginable now, the very possibility an unfathomable concept. She would love, and work, have children, live out the rest of her insignificant days and die. There would be no revenge for him. No flicker of happiness. No moment of greatness.

But she would be spared the pain.

(He is too selfish to consider any of it possible. He knows, deep in the darkness of his depraved, miserable soul, not even God himself could keep him away from her.)

 

-

 

“Beautiful.”

She looks up at him from the flowers she holds in her hands, roses pale pink as her lips. Her hair is shorter, her eyes more green than blue. He catalogues every freckle on her face, every line, the rise and fall of her chest. Breathing. _Alive._

He remembers himself. “The flowers.”

She smiles politely, the pull of him drawing her into his orbit; unconsciously she leans closer, the sleeve of her leather jacket brushing his shirt. “Aren't they? They're my favorite.”

“Of course.” Years upon years stretch across his memory, different places and different names and different faces – all blending into this one moment of connection. The moment of puzzle pieces falling into place. Finding each other, like they always do.

He doesn't hide himself this time. She will remember him, all the wretched, dreadful things that make him, and she will choose, like she always does.

Her eyes narrow with curiosity, distant recognition tugging at her mind.

“Mina,” she says, extending her hand to him.

“Vlad.”

(And he will not lose her this time.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> *jazz hands* sue me


End file.
